Microbial Succession and Interactions During the Manufacture of Fu Brick Tea.

Fu Brick tea is a very popular post-fermented tea that is known for its "golden flower fungus," , which becomes the dominant microbe during the maturation process. This study used both culture-dependent methods and high-throughput sequencing to track microbial succession and interactions during the development of the golden flower fungus, a crucial component of the manufacturing process of Fu Brick tea. Among the bacterial communities, and were consistently cultured from both fresh tea leaves and in post-fermentation Fu Brick tea. , and were dominant genera in fresh tea leaves but declined once fermentation started, while , and became dominant after piling fermentation. The abundance of increased during the manufacturing process, accounting for over 98% of all fungi present after the golden flower bloom in the Fu Brick tea product. Despite their consistent presence during culture work, network analysis showed and to be negatively correlated with . spp., as expected from culture work, positively correlated with the presence of golden flower fungus. This study provides complete insights about the succession of microbial communities and highlights the importance of co-occurrence microbes with during the manufacturing process of Fu Brick tea.